Battle of the Beaters

We give three editors $1000 apiece so that each may contest—in his own low-compression heap—our first-annual Special Olympics of Rust. One beater wins. The other two suffer general corruption and bad juju.

October 1997 By JOHN PHILLIPS Photos By AARON KILEY

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Listed MSRP is for a Rabbit 2dr HB Man S Box base trim with no options. Includes destination fee. Does not include sales tax.

The Rabbit's suspension had a ure­thane-bushing problem—"actually, more like a zero-bushing problem," said Smith, anxious to impugn the reputations of his competitors. Curiously, the floppiness of the VW's suspension matched perfectly the floppiness of its engine, which moved in its mounts a length that some middle-distance sprinters would find taxing. During testing, the engine rocked sufficiently to yank free its coil wire. Miraculously, this slowed it not at all.

The Rabbit's shift linkage was also problematic. When test driver Larry Webster first climbed into the car, he inadvertently launched the vehicle in reverse, barking the tires with more vigor than he would subsequently accomplish in any forward gear. Explained Markus: "The previous owner sawed off the orig­inal linkage and welded in some pieces shaped like cheese doodles. First and reverse live together in there, in a kind of Pennsylvania tenement."

On the skidpad, the clear Guardian of Grip was the Rabbit, at 0.81 g, followed by the RX-7 (here's an entry from the log­book: "less self-centering than Billy Graham"), then the Camaro, which bil­lowed indigo smoke for six minutes after its skidpad adventure. The Camaro lost points when an oil warning light signaled empty, a clear fabrication given the cor­nucopia of petroleum dribbling and chan­neling in a kind of miniature Rainbow Falls at the tips of both exhausts.

In braking, the winner was (who else?) the Rabbit, at 197 feet.

"My car," said Berg of his Mazda, "doesn't so much have brakes as what I'd prefer you called 'delayers' or perhaps 'hesitators.' "

In deference to Berg's semantic preci­sion, we explained that his car hadn't flunked. It had merely earned an "incom­plete." "The man is anti-semantic," added Smith.

Winner: Rabbit

Runner-Up: RX-7

Total Loozer: Camaro

THE VALET TEST

Will a valet park a beater? In the name of science, we approached a local country club of vast pretense and acute snobbery. There, the valet—of indeterminate age but who displayed a receding hairline—was, in fact, eventually persuaded to park our Rabbit. But the Camaro—its tattered door all too visible to two golfers who had moments before disembarked from a red Porsche 911—caused a nasty crease to form on his scabby brow.

"I don't mean to be uncooperative," barked the valet at road warrior Erik Davidek, "but we have a dress code here!" Then, gesturing at the forlorn Camaro as if it were a soiled copy of the Utne Reader, he added, "Please, this vehicle goes to the far lot."

"Excuse me," replied Davidek. "But I thought you were supposed to do that." From this alert rejoinder no satisfaction did young Davidek enjoy.

Naturally, the Mazda elicited rougher treatment still. A second valet—young and unsure of the difference between "igni­tion" and "starter button"—said the RX-7 was "not in keeping with local standards." He delivered this opinion after discovering that the vehicle was equipped with no key he could after­ward affix to the valets' "Big Board o' Keys." And he appeared disinclined to accept either Berg's cold chisel or a chrome vanadium screwdriver with which to toggle the rotary to life. We thus unearthed a genuine RX-7 key—alas, it opened only the fuel-filler flap and random tins of Skoal—but the valet made an ostentatious and needlessly fussy display of refusing it.

Winner: Rabbit

Runner-Up: Camaro

Total Loozer: RX-7

SPEEDWAY ALACRITY

Butler Battlegrounds is more than a battleground. It's a 3/8ths-­mile, high-banked clay oval (camping allowed) near Coldwater, Michigan (town motto: "You Gotta Live Somewhere"). Here, some impressive personal­ities have toiled at the wheel—Mel Kenyon, for example. On the other hand, Arie Luyendyk has never raced at Butler.

Anticipating his three-lap qualifying attempt in the sporty V-8 Camaro, Smith suddenly turned cocky. "My car is just all ate up with motor," he announced, and not too long after Darrell Waltrip had first announced it. As it turned out, the Camaro was actually all ate up with flaccid shock absorbers, which dashed Smith's hopes and more than a few clumps of off-the-pre­ferred-line clay. Smith was all ate up with mortification.

Meanwhile, the Rabbit's front-wheel drive was not suited to high-banked escapades. Nor was its driver. "I feared pushing too diligently," said Markus, who had nonetheless brought a spare anti-roll bar. "I didn't want to get it all dusty," he said.

Alas, Berg in the RX-7 was unbeatable, particularly after he located "the high groove," as he identified it, "which I once read about in Winston Cup Scene.

"Did you see me hang the tail out?" Berg asked following a 23.41-second lap in which he was seen fiddling with an aftermarket CB radio. Actually, no one had.

"I feel like that character in A Mid­summer Night's Dream who awakens to find asses' ears on his head," said a dejected Smith. The Car and Driver team, ever compassionate, immediately bought him a bracing Blatz, and the literary analo­gies ceased.

Winner: RX-7 (23.41 seconds)

Runner-Up: Camaro (23.75 seconds)

Total Loozer: Rabbit (24.76 seconds)

OFF-ROADABILITY

The off-road capability of beaters is, in a reductionist construct, key to judging their long-term value. This is because the owners of beaters often subject their vehicles to unscheduled field exercises following, for instance, intense stock-offering negotiations at the Dam Site Inn during free-pitcher night.

Sad to say, our off-road test was largely spoiled by immoderate precipitation. The winner, by default, was the first vehicle that attempted to navigate the course—a vehicle, it should be noted, that accrued further bonus points by continuing to block the course for 21 consecutive hours, a C/D record. Unfair? Perhaps. But such is the daily fare of a beater's harsh existence.

Eventually, we did extricate the RX-7 from the water hazard, but only after road warrior Scott Mosher unknowingly reenacted a crucial scene from the movie Stand by Me, when he wailed: "Oh, God, something just swam up my pants. Will someone please help?" No editor marched in his direction.

Berg, the RX-7's proud proprietor, was characteristically modest in victory. "I'd like to thank my tire sponsors," he said, "Dunlop, Goodyear, Riken, and probably one other company soon, by the looks of that right front." As if in response, the RX­7's sole remaining forward-facing source of illumination failed. In the gloaming, Berg's Nordic bachelor-farmer features were thereafter bathed in the red, yellow, and sometimes green glow of flickering warning lights.

Winner: RX-7 (lone attempt)

Runner-Up: Camaro (willing but engaged in dilatory run to Taco Bell)

Total Loozer: Rabbit (balky owner frozen by fear)

MOST LIKELY TO LEAK

Although the Camaro ruptured a heater hose during its acceleration measurements, hereby later placing a literal spin on the term "skidpad," the RX-7 easily out-hemorrhaged it. At the conclusion of its top-speed run, the Mazda was leaking radiator coolant, Mobil 1 oil, transmission fluid, clutch fluid, windshield-washer solvent, Berg's personal cache of Diet Pepsi, and more than a few Kamel Red butts. Later, it would leak most of a swamp, plus a bottle of flat-black touch-up paint that was crushed by the combination spare tire/Mikuni carb that Berg had inscrutably insisted be carried "untethered in any manner at all times" tinder the hatchback.

On the Mazda's VIN plate, we affixed this order: "DO NOT RESUSCITATE!"

Winner: Rabbit

Runner-Up: Camaro

Total Loozer: RX-7

GETTING RUBBER

First off, this contest to see which beater could put down the biggest patch of rubber was conducted on dirt, okay? That's because there was no wet grass available. The Rabbit, with a propensity to spin only one tire, earned a hollow victory here, laying a 62-foot patch. "What's the sound of one hand clapping?" asked a philosophical Markus, who does not affect the raiment of a Buddhist.

The Camaro and the RX-7 were virtu­ally tied at 52 feet—a sad day for hulking American V-8s—though it must be revealed that, to assist in wheelspin his RX-7 would not develop under normal cir­cumstances, our otherwise honest Mr. Berg urinated—yes, dear reader, your eyes do not deceive you—on his car's right-rear tire, thus imbuing it with not only illegiti­mate slip angles but also an odor not com­monly encountered anywhere this side of the Toledo Zoo's primate pen. Naturally, we awarded him bonus points.